Page 6

Page 7

DISRAELI ON THE SECRET SOCIETIES AND THE JEWS.—I.

THE question whether there exist on the Continent or even here Secret Societies with ultra-revo- lutionary aims inspired and controlled by Jews, and if so, what type of Jews and for what particular purposes, is still causing a great deal of interest, if not, indeed, anxiety. That being so, we need make no apology for returning to the subject treated by us the other day in reviewing the now notorious pamphlet, The Jewish Peril. In our notice we only had time to refer very generally to Disraeli's writings dealing with the matters in question. Here we desire to set forth the actual words of the great English statesman, who while a good patriot and a sincere Chris- tian was unquestionably also an ardent Jew. In the wonderful 24th chapter of the Life of Lord George Bentinck, a chapter which contains one of the most passionate vin- dications of the Semitic race ever written, Disraeli has to deal with and find excuses, or at any rate- explanations, for the revolutionary side of Judaism--just as now they have to be found by those who like ourselves. demand Justice for the Jew. Ilisraeli writing in the fifties had to deal with the dilemma that, though he upheld the Jews as providing one of the main props of law and order in Europe, the chosen people had been among the chief inspirers of the revolutions which in '48 swept like a hurricane over Europe. Disraeli's apology is both bold and ingenious. He makes no attempt to deny or to dilute the facts. He fully admits them. After a glowing panegyric of the Jews and what they have taught and practised in the world he continues :- " Thu it will be seen that all the tendencies of the Jewish race are conservative. Their bias is to religion, property, and natural aristocracy, and it should be the interest of statesmen that this bias of a great race should be encouraged, and their energies and creative powers enlisted in the cause of existing society. But existing society has chosen to persecute this race which should furnish its choicest allies, and what has been the Consequence 7 They may be traced in the last outbreak of the destructive principle in Europe. An insurrection takes place against tradition and aristocracy, against religion and property. Destruction of the Semitic principle, extirpation of the Jewish , religion, whether in the Mosaic or in the Christian form, the natural equality of man and the abrogation of property are proclaimed by the Secret societies who form provisional governments, and men of Jewish race are found at the head of every one of them. The people of God co-operate with Atheists ; the most skilful accumulators of property ally themselves with communists ; the peculiar and chosen race touch the hand of all the scum and low castes of Europe And all this because they wish to destroy that ungrateful Christendom, , which owes to them even its name, and whose tyranny they can no longer endure. When the Secret Societies, in February, 1848, surprised Europe, they were themselves surprised by the unex- pected opportunity, and so little capable were they of seizing the occasion that, had it not been for the Jews, who of late years unfor- tunately have been connecting themselves with these unhallowed associations, imbecile as were the governments, the uncalled-for outbreak would not have ravaged Europe. But the fiery energy and the teeming resources 'of the children of Israel maintained for a • long time the unnecessary and useless struggle. If the reader throws •his eye over- the provisional governments of Germany and Italy, and even France, formed at that period, he will recognize everywhere the Jewish element. Even the insur- rection and, defence, and administration of Venice, which, from the resource and statesmanlike models-Om displayed, com- manded almost the respect and sympathy of Europe, were accom- plished by a Jew—Manini, who, by the by, is a Jew who pro- fesses the whole of the Jewish religion, and believes in Calvary as well as Sinai, a converted Jew ' as the Lombards styled him, quite forgetting, in the confusion of their ideas, that it is the Lombards who are the converts—not Marini. Thus it will be seen that the persecution of the Jewish race has deprived Euro- pean society of an important conservative element and added to the destructive party an influential ally. Prince Metternioh, the mast enlightened of modemstatesmen, not to say the most intel- lectual of men, was, though himself a victim of the Secret socie- ties, fully aware of these premises. It was always his custom, great as were the difficulties which in so doing he had to encounter, to employ as much as possible the, Hebrew race in the public service. He could never forget that. Napoleon in his noontide hour had been checked by the pen of the greatest of political writers ; lie had found that illustrious author as great in the cabinet as in the study ; he knew that no one had more con- tributed to the deliverance-of Europe. It was not as a patron, but as an appreciating and devoted friend,.thet the High Chan- cellor of Austria appointed Frederick Gentz secretary to the Congress of Vienna—and Frederick Gentz was a child of Israel. The equivocal principle of religious equality, the unqualified application of which seems hardly consistent with that reeog- 'nition. of religious truth by the State to which we yet adhere, and without which it is highly probable that the northern and western races after a disturbing and rapidly degrading period of atheistic anarchy may finally recur to their old national idola- tries; modified and mystically dressed up according to the spirit of the age. It may be observed that the decline and disasters of modern communities have generally been relative to their degree of sedition against the Semitic principle. Since the great revolt of the Celts against the first and second testament, at the close of the last century, France has been alternately in a state of collapse or convulsion. Throughout the awful trials of the last sixty years, England, notwithstanding her deficient and meagre theology, has always remembered Zion. The great transatlantic republic is intensely Semitic, and has prospered accordingly. This sacred principle alone has consolidated the mighty Empire of all the Russian. How omnipotent it is cannot be more clearly shown than by the instance of Rome, when it appears in its most corrupt form.. An old man on a Semitic throne baffles the modern Attilas, and the recent invasion of the barbarians, under the form of red republicans, socialists, com- munists—all different phases which• describe the relapse of the once. converted races into their primitive condition of savagery. Austria would long ago have dissolved but for the Semitic principle ; and if the north of Germany has never succeeded in obtaining that imperial position which seemed its natural destiny, it is that the north of Germany has never at, any time been thoroughly converted. Some, perhaps, may point to Spain as a remarkable instance of decline in a country where the Semitic principle has exercised great influence. But the fall of Spain was occasioned by the expulsion.. of her Semitic population : a million families of Jews and Saracens, the most distinguished of her citizens for their industry and their intelli- gence, their learning and their wealth."

Those sentences which we- have italicized' in the above quotation should be specially noted. In 1848, as now, the Jews were-accused, as they also- had been at the begin- ning of the French Revolution, of having taken a leading part in the subversive *Secret Societies, which were held to have engineered the vast. upheaval. Disraeli obviously felt the need for explaining the connection of his fellow Jews with those " unhalloWecl. associations." In doing so, his words seem to find a most curious and significant reverberation in what we must call till a better- abstract of title is produced Dr. Nilus's alleged documents.

.Another somewhat notable sidelight is thrown upon the Nilus pamphlet by Disraeli's writings. It may be remem- bered that in the pamphlet the alleged Jewish conspirator and prophet makes a vehement and contemptuous attack upon the three principles of Liberty, Equality and Fra- ' ternity, and declares 'that they were used and are being used by the Jews as instruments of very great power for ' the destruction of Christian society. Disraeli, though he turns the argument to a very different use, glories in the fact that Jews have never bowed the knee to political abstractions. On the contrary, he asserts that they have always made a stand against the abstractions of rationalism and utilitarianism. The sophistries of equality are de- scribed with special vehemence, and curiously enough in this context special stress is laid upon the power which the possession of wealth has given to the Hebrew race. It will be remembered that in Professor Niles's pamphlet a similar claim is made for the Jews. They are there repre- • vented as wielding and deserving power owing to their disbelief in equality and their possession of gold I "The Jews represent the Semitic principle, all that is spiritual in our nature. They -are the trustees of tradition, and the conservators of the religious element. They are a living and the most striking -evidence of the falsity of that pernicious doctrine of modern times the natural equality of man. The political equality of a particular race is a matter of municipal arrangement, and depends entirely on political considerations and aircumetaneee ; but the natural quality of man now in vogue, and taking the form of cosmopolitan fraternity, is a principle which, were it possible to act on it, would deteriorate the great races and destroy all the genius of the world. What would be the consequence on the great Anglo-Saxon republic, for example,' were its citizens to secede from their. sound principle of reserve and- mingle with their negro and coloured populations ? In the course of time they would become so deteriorated that their states would probably be teconquered-and ,regained by the Aborigines whom they have expelled, and who would then be their superiors. But though nature will never ultimately permit this theory of natural equality to be practised, the preaching of this dogma has already caused much mischief, and may occasion much more. The native tendency of the Jewish race, who are naturally proud of their blood, is against the doctrine of the equality of man. They have also another characteristic, the faculty of acquisition. Although the European laws have endeavoured to prevent their obtaining pro- perty, they have nevertheless become remarkable for their accumu- lated wealth."—(Life-of Lord George Bentinck, Chapter XXIV.)